1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the quality control of receptacles which are open at one end, identical to each other and individually manufactured in large quantities, such as cones, cornets, cups, shells, in advance of additional treating or further processing. Generally, following their manufacture, such receptacles are fitted, slid or in some other way nested one into the other and subsequently packaged in stacks or further advanced in stacks to be coated or filled.
2. The Prior Art
One type of receptacles in question are those wafer-like cornets and cones known to the foodstuffs and luxury foods industries which are made from a waffle-type batter baked in wafer ovens for the consumption of ice cream and which, depending on their size, are baked, 4 to 11 in count, in one of the wafer baking molds of a wafer oven. If a wafer baking oven is utilized, there are 72 identically constructed baking tongs inside the oven. Each tong has a multipart baking mold accommodating 11 cornets. The baking tongs are arranged in an interconnected fashion to form a continuous chain of baking tongs, and revolve from the batter or dough filling station through the baking area to the wafer output station.
Approximately 24,000 cornets will leave the wafer output station on an 11-track chute in successive transverse tiers containing 11 cornets per transverse tier. The wafer cornets are generally conveyed in successive transverse tiers to a stacking device enabling them, in stacked form, to be more easily and quickly transported and packaged or otherwise treated. Generally, the cornets are nested one in another to form stacks of a predetermined height and length, packed in cartons by the wafer manufacturer and forwarded to a plant for further processing where the cornets are inserted, in stacks for example, into a soft-ice cream dispensing machine.
In the manufacturing of wafer cornets, wafer cones and similar hollow wafers in wafer baking ovens, methods utilizing excess batter or dough to ensure reliable filling of the baking molds were used and longer baking times, with reference to the banking temperature, were run. The amount of batter and the baking temperature and baking time were selected in such a way that the number of defective baked wafers was very low. Consequently, a thorough quality control inspection of the wafers was not required, or the high costs attendant on such inspection, in view of the low number of defective wafers produced, was uneconomical.
As a result of efforts aimed at increasing the yield of baked wafers per kilogram of batter or dough used and at optimizing baking conditions, directed toward making baking times as short as possible, the risk that the number of incomplete or qualitatively less than perfect hollow wafers among the perfectly formed and baked hollow wafers has markedly increased.